Women Jurors

by Editor
July 14, 2013 at 11:02 pm

https://www.smartertimes.com/950/women-jurors

From the Times news article reporting the verdict in the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin case: "After three weeks of testimony, the six-woman jury rejected the prosecution's contention that Mr. Zimmerman had deliberately pursued Mr. Martin because he assumed the hoodie-clad teenager was a criminal and instigated the fight that led to his death.... The six female jurors entered the quiet, tense courtroom, several looking exhausted, their faces drawn and grim. After the verdict was read, each assented, one by one, quietly, their agreement with the verdict."

This article was turned around on a tight deadline, but even so one wonders whether the fact that the jurors were women is really so important that it deserved to be repeated twice (six-woman...six female jurors) in the first four paragraphs of the story. There's no indication in the rest of the article that the gender of the jurors played any role in their decision to acquit Mr. Zimmerman of the charges, so it's not clear why the two female New York Times reporters who wrote the article mentioned the jurors' gender twice and so prominently.

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